


Downfall

by GaeilgeRua



Series: Dark Daughter [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Alternate Universe-Extended War, Character Death, Dark, Dark Hermione Granger, Gen, Language, Unforgivable Curses (Harry Potter), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 17:46:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaeilgeRua/pseuds/GaeilgeRua
Summary: She was their downfall and made sure they knew it.





	Downfall

**Author's Note:**

> I will freely admit that this is probably the darkest thing I've ever written. Please note the tags and don't say I didn't warn you.
> 
> It is part of my Dark Daughter series but can stand alone and was written for Hermione's Haven 2019 Bingo square-Imperio.
> 
> Thank you to Squarepeg72, thescarletphoenixx, and xxDustNight88 for their Alpha and beta skills. Any errors after they looked it over are my own.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own anyone or anything recognisable from the HP world, and I'm not making any money off of this.

                                             

She stood in the shadows with her godfather, waiting for the opportune moment to reveal themselves. In the meantime, they watched as the two wizards slowly came to. First one and then the other.

"Harry?" Ron Weasley whispered as he looked around the stone room they found themselves in. "Harry? Are you awake?"

The dark-haired wizard groaned in response as he shifted on the ground and struggled to sit up.

Ron moved to help him but found his right ankle was shackled to the wall and he couldn't move close enough to help his best friend. "What the bloody hell?!" He looked down his leg to find a heavy iron shackle clamped around his ankle. "What in Merlin's name is going on?"

At Ron's exclamation, Harry was wide awake and sitting up within seconds. He looked down at his own legs to see that an identical iron shackle was connecting his left leg to the wall. Harry reached for the heavy metal chain only to find that the length of his was even shorter than Ron's. He couldn't move more than two feet from the wall.

Harry looked up at his friend. "I don't know what's going on, mate, but whatever it is, it can't be good." He narrowed his bright green eyes and looked around the small room. After he finished his survey, he frowned deeply. "Ron…"

The redhead glanced at him, a worried look upon his own face at the frightened sound of Harry's voice. "What is it?"

Green eyes met blue as the dark-haired wizard voiced his concern, "Where's Hermione? She was with us when we were ambushed. Where is she? Why isn't she with us?"

Ron scrambled to stand up, trying to reach the heavy iron door a few feet from him. "Hermione!" He could just reach the edge of the door, but no further. His fingers slipped as he tried to clasp onto anything to give him better leverage to try and reach the outside.

"Your attempt to call for her is futile," her godfather said as he pressed a hand against her shoulder signalling her to continue to stay put for the time being.

"Who said that?!" Ron questioned as Harry asked, "Who's there?!"

Her godfather finally stepped out from the shadows.

Ron screamed in fright as Harry gasped, "Riddle!" His eyes narrowed. "What happened to you? You don't look like I last saw you." His frown deepened as he realised what the Dark Lord actually said. "What do you mean, futile?"

"Well," the Dark Lord replied as he eyed the dark-haired wizard glaring at him. "It's good to know you still recognise me without all the glamours."

Ron stared at him. "Glamours?"

"Yes, Mr Weasley, glamours. They do wonders when one wants to instil fear in one's enemies." He spared Ron a quick glance before he returned his gaze to Harry. "To answer your question, Harry Potter, no one can hear you outside this room."

"So, what? You plan to just keep us here, separated from her?"

If looks could kill, the intensity of Ron's glare would have the Dark Lord six feet under and listening to mandrakes. "Or did you kill her already?"

"You really want to see your friend? Make sure I haven't hurt her?"

"Yes!" Both boys yelled.

The Dark Lord smirked. "I have a feeling you won't be happy with what you see."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"My dear, you're welcome to join us now."

She tried to suppress a smirk as she followed in her godfather's footsteps and left the shadows behind her.

Harry scrambled to his feet while Ron nearly tripped over his own as he fell back against the wall.

"Hermione?"

She unconsciously straightened her shoulders and looked at them in such a way that reminded the two prisoners of their former Potions professor. "Yes?"

Harry looked at her, confused. "Why are you with them? What have they done to you?"

"Have they taken your parents hostage?"

Everyone turned to look at Ron.

He glared at the Dark Lord. "What? It's a valid question."

"Why would I hurt my goddaughter's parents when they're two of my most devoted followers?"

Ron turned wide eyes towards Hermione. "Goddaughter?"

"Followers?" Harry looked back and forth between the Dark Lord and Hermione. "How is that possible? I thought you sent your parents to Australia?"

Hermione laughed, but rather than the cheerful sound the two wizards were used to hearing from her, it sounded more like a cackle and sent chills down Harry and Ron's spines. She sobered after a few moments and turned bright, mirthful dark eyes in their direction. "My Muggle parents are perfectly safe and sound somewhere other than Australia. With Dumbledore's continued irrational decisions, my father and I knew it was only a matter of time before the Grangers would become targets and not from the Death Eaters."

"Why?"

She glared at Harry. "You of all people know how important my Muggle parents are to me and to have you throw my decision to protect them in my face was the last straw. I made my decision to devote my time to learning everything I could learn about 'the other side'. Everything we had been told was a lie of some kind."

"How do you know the dark hasn't painted things in a better light for them?"

She tilted her head to the side as she studied Ron for a moment. "Ronald, how long have you known me?"

"Not long enough, obviously," he replied, his tone harsh.

Hermione grinned. "But long enough to know that I won't stop studying until I know everything about what I'm researching. So what makes you think this would be any different?"

"Cut the crap, Hermione," Harry spat. "What do you want?"

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips as her grin turned devilish. "To kill you, of course."

"Hermione, you can't kill Harry!" Ron exclaimed. "The prophecy states that either Harry or You-Know-Who has to kill the other, so you see you killing Harry just won't happen." Ron grinned at her smugly, thinking he had pulled one over on the smart witch.

Hermione smiled sweetly in return. "I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Ron, but Trelawney's prophecy was just like any of her others, nothing but a fake. So you see, I can kill Harry and I can kill you too, and as I just said, that's exactly what I'm going to do."

The Dark Lord conjured a comfortable looking chair to sit in to watch Hermione work. "Who do you plan to start with, my dear?"

She looked between the two wizards for a few moments as she thought over his question. "You know, I think I'm going to go with Ronald." She snickered. "Give him his only taste of what it's like to not be in someone else's shadow."

"If anyone has been in the shadows, it's been you, Hermione," Harry argued, sneering at her.

"Oh, Harry, those are not the shadows I'm talking about," she replied, her tone patronising. She pulled her wand from the holster hidden up her right arm and walked towards Ron. "No, I'm talking about a whole other kind of shadow with dear Ronald here."

In the blink of an eye, Hermione flicked her wand, and Ron found himself completely bound to the wall behind him.

Ron started pulling on the shackles attached to his wrists. "Dammit, Hermione! What are you doing?! Let me go! You don't want to do this!"

"Riddle, let her go!" Harry surged forward, trying to reach Ron. He nearly fell face first onto the stone ground when his chain reached the end of its two-foot limit. "You have to have her under the Imperius Curse. That's the only explanation because she doesn't want to be doing this!"

Hermione flicked her wand towards Ron and then Harry as she whispered the silencing spell twice. "There is no outside influence on what I'm going to do to the two of you today. Other than what the both of you and the Order have done to me. I was shunned for protecting my parents because it didn't fit into Dumbledore's plans for the war." She looked at Harry. "And what happened when we all became of age? The two of you were inducted into the Order, and I was told I wasn't ready." She barked out a laugh, the sound harsh as it echoed around the room. "No, that wasn't it. It was because the last time they had a Muggleborn in the group, she ended up creating a bigger mess than they had. Or at least that's how many of the others viewed your mum, Harry."

He looked at her confused.

"Didn't realise that, did you?" She shrugged. "There are a lot who felt it was her fault that they weren't able to defeat the Dark Lord the first time. Because of that thought process, I got lumped into the same 'they're not worthy' category. Too bad it's the Order that's not worthy."

She turned to face the red headed wizard who still yelling even though no sound was coming out. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Really, Ronald? You're still going off even after I silenced you? This once again fits with what I was talking about earlier. As soon as Harry realised he wasn't going to be heard, he stopped making himself look like an arse and settled for the silent glare. Now, if I were younger and naïve, that would probably scare me, but unfortunately for you two, I'm not." Hermione twirled her wand as she walked toward him. "But you, Ronald, can't see what trouble you're in and just back down. Oh no, you just keep going, and that's one of the many reasons why you were never going to amount to anything. You were always going to be second best, and you know it.

"You're not as good looking as Bill. You're not as good with animals like Charlie. You would never stand a chance in the bureaucracy of the Ministry like Percy does. You don't have the inventive mind like the twins, and while you're the youngest son, you're not the youngest child because Ginny, the only girl in your family, is younger than you. You've tried to be noticed outside of your family, but you're not the 'Chosen One' like Harry, and you're not smart like I am, so you will always only be just second-best." She smirked. "And before you say, or try to since you're silenced, that you had Quidditch and that you could have made it as a professional star, you should probably know that the only reason you made the team is because I confounded Cormac. So you see, even against an arrogant toerag like Cormac McLaggen, you are just second-best."

"I think he gets the idea, my dear," the Dark Lord said, chuckling.

She shrugged and turned to look at her godfather with a smirk. "I'm nothing if not thorough."

"I know, my dear, but I'm finding myself—"

Hermione cut him off, "Rather bored?"

"That and we have more important things to do," the Dark Lord reminded her.

"True," Hermione replied. She turned back to face her former best friends. "So who wants to go first?" When neither wizard responded, Hermione shrugged and glanced at Ron. She raised her wand. "You know what? Why don't we test my theory?" With a flick of her wrist, she released Ron's shackle. " _Imperio_."

The Dark Lord watched in fascination as Hermione coaxed the youngest Weasley son into strangling his own best friend. Once the light finally left and dulled Harry's normally bright green eyes, Hermione released Ron from both the Imperius Curse and the Silencing Spell.

She stood there waiting for him to realise what he'd done. What she made him do.

His blue eyes widened in horror as he stared into the lifeless eyes of his best friend. Snatching his bloodied hands back, he turned his gaze to them trying to figure out where the blood came from.

"Harry fought you," Hermione informed him. She nodded her chin in the direction of his hands. "That's where all the blood came from."

Ron jumped at the sound of Hermione's voice before he turned to face her. Blue met brown. He stared at her for a few seconds before his eyes narrowed in anger. "You bitch," Ron growled as he stumbled to his feet. "You made me do this."

"Of course I did, and it looks like my theory was correct," she said offhandedly. "We all know you couldn't do it on your own."

"Fuck you," Ron countered as he lunged towards her.

"You wish. Goodbye, Ronald." She raised her wand one last time. Green light filled the small cell as she murmured, " _Avada Kedavra_."


End file.
